


Indifference

by monaboyd_archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Romance, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-01
Updated: 2004-06-01
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monaboyd_archivist/pseuds/monaboyd_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dominic is indifferent to Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indifference

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Shirasade: this story was originally archived at the [Monaboyd.net Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Monaboyd.net), which was closed in September 2014 due to software issues and a lack of new submissions for several years. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2014. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Monaboyd.net Archive collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Monaboyd_Archive/profile).

Christmas was never a big deal for Dominic. He always got crap presents as his birthday was so close to the holiday. He always got stuck with the not-quite-so-pretty girl under the mistletoe. And he always got sick over eggnog and gingerbread men and candy canes. And he always ended up in debt, with extra presents he'd never gotten around to handing out, extra cards he'd never bothered to send, and thank you cards that he intended to write but never did.

No, Christmas wasn't for Dominic, thanks very much, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

It wasn't that he hated Christmas. The words 'bah, humbug' had never crossed Dominic's lips and weren't planned to any time in the near future. He didn't steal money from Santas on the street corners or throw their stupid bells into the gutter as he so often longed to do. It just didn't matter that much to him. He was indifferent, that's what it was. Dominic was indifferent to Christmas.

He went through the motions all right. He even got a little excited when he found *the* perfect gift. But then, he always got excited when he saw something he knew somebody would love. Christmas had nothing to do with it. It didn't possess him, not like some people he knew.

Dominic would scrawl 'happy holidays, with love, Dom' mechanically on his (standard, generic, Hallmark) cards during commercial breaks of whatever television show he was watching at the moment (and no, it wasn't A Charlie Brown Christmas, Dominic couldn't bear to watch the poor balding bloke for more than two minutes without wanting to hurl). Everyone else he knew wrote long, detailed letters that he threw into the trash without reading to send along with their cards and shot roll after roll of film to include with the cards and letters. Dominic threw those out, too.

In Dominic's cards, he included...nothing. Even when he moved, he never bothered to include a change of address or a new phone number. It wasn't that he didn't care. It was just that he didn't think of it.

Dominic knew people who started Christmas shopping in October.

Dominic signed online on December 23, clicked a few buttons, paid the extra cash for 24-hour rush delivery, and went to bed, his Christmas shopping done and on its way.

He even knew people who went through the hellish torture of untangling Christmas tree lights and being stabbed by the hooks of ornaments and shoveling driveways to better display their plastic Rudolph cutouts. That was definitely overkill in Dom's point of view.

Dom was more of a stick-a-wreath-on-the-door and call it a day, kind of guy.

He didn't resent those that DID love Christmas and celebrate it passionately and were even a bit (scary) fanatical about it. In fact, he kind of got a kick out of their excitement.

But that didn't mean he wanted them ringing him up at all hours of the night, trying to beautify his un-Christmasy home and trying to instill some sense of spirit in him when all he really wanted to do was have a couple of beers and crawl into bed and *sleep*.

Dominic was trying, unsuccessfully, to explain this to his absolutely mad fellow hobbits who were trying to make him do all of the things he did not want to do that Christmas.

They started off small, making him personalize his Christmas cards (Chrissake, Dom, can't you at least write, "Elijah, you wanker, merry Christmas?") and taking him Christmas shopping with them (bitch, get your ass in the car before I set Orlando on you) rather than allowing him to continue on with his usual holiday mall madness of add-to-cart-check-out-sign-off. They even took his picture with Santa (in which he looked rather pissed off and had his mouth open because he was in the middle of calling Billy a prissy Scottish cunt, but it had the beard and the elf and all in all was a good picture, everyone agreed).

Then they moved onto the big stuff. They insisted on decorating his flat for the holidays, although in Dominic's opinion it looked more like a sleazy Vegas motel room (flashing neon lights spelling out HAPPY HOLIDAYS and Mrs. Clauses in thongs did not exactly spell class, but who was Dominic to argue with Elijah and Orlando and their decorating skills)?. They got him a tree and decorated it, complete with a lot of hideous looking silver tinsel that wouldn't stay on the tree and seemed to multiple until he was vacuuming five times a day as opposed to the vacuuming every five years he usually he did.

The crowning glory was the mistletoe.

Dominic had never been very fond of mistletoe. Not only had he always been stuck under it with the not-quite-so-pretty girl nobody else wanted to kiss, he was always stuck under it with the girl that didn't want to kiss *him* ("Get away from me, big ears!" was one Christmas memory that came flooding back at the mere mention of mistletoe and turned said big ears a lovely shade of crimson at the thought). Or worse yet, being stuck underneath with another guy and having to deal with all the should I or shouldn't I's and the should I want to or shouldn't I and all the other *fun* emotional torment that went along with it. Honestly. Mistletoe and whoever decided that it would be great load of fun to be kissed under it deserved to be shot in the balls and then hung till their stupid mistletoe-loving neck snapped.

Not that Dominic was harboring any bitter feelings about the big ears comment or anything.

Dominic hated the mistletoe, even more than he hated the flashing neon sign of HAPPY HOLIDAYS, even more than he hated the garlands his decorating crew (read: Elijah the wanker and Orlando the prima donna) had tacked up over available surface. He hated seeing it, dangling above his head, every time he went for a snack or a beer or any time he left the apartment. He hated the way Lij and Orlando snickered and jabbed each other in the ribs and pointed at it like two fucking twelve year olds. He hated the way it made Sean launch into long, boring monologues of how he remembered kissing under the mistletoe and Christmas and somehow, working something in about being a father. And he especially hated the way it made Billy smile that secret little smile, the one that started him humming and made Dominic crazy.

And worse than the mistletoe were the theories.

"Dom hates Christmas 'cause his brother used to eat all his Christmas cookies," was Orlando's insightful theory.

"Dom hates Christmas because he never got a Red Ryder BB gun," was Elijah's American-sap-infused theory which nobody except Sean got without a lot of explanation and a trip to the nearest video store.

"BLAH BLAH BLAH FAMILY BLAH BLAH BLAH FAT BLAH BLAH BLAH," was what Sean's theory sounded like to Dom's tired and annoyed (big. fucking prepubescent girl.) ears.

"Dommie hates Christmas 'cause there's not enough magic to it," said Billy and he smiled and started humming again.

Whatever the hell *that* meant.

It was shortly after the (half-drunkenly given) theories that presents began appearing. Nothing big, but still. Presents! Christmas or no, Dominic loved presents. Lollipops in his coat pockets, flowers left on the hood of his car, movie tickets taped to the door of his flat - left for him by what the others had started referring to as his Secret Santa. Dominic hadn't had a Secret Santa since about the fifth grade and it thrilled him to no end to reach into his pocket and have his hand close around a lollipop rather than his keys, or to be mid-rummage in the refrigerator when he'd be interrupted by a delivery boy - he never ordered anything, but to his confusion, the delivery boy would only smile at him and say 'no charge, it's been taken care of, no charge'.

Dominic *tried* to find out who his Secret Santa was. He left notes where he found gifts, harassed fellow cast members until even they lost their Christmas spirit and told him to go fuck himself. He interrupted the middle of a shoot to yell, confused and intrigued, upon discovering a CD he'd been hunting all over town for carefully folded up in Merry's coat, "WHO IS IT?! WHO'S LEAVING ME THESE THINGS?!" That hadn't gone over too well with Peter.

Elijah promised he'd know his Secret Santa come Christmas Eve. "That's how it always works," he assured Dominic.

Sean suggested maybe it was a psychotic fan. "They *do* these things you know," he warned and reminded Dominic to always have his cell with him in case he needed to call for help.

Orlando instinuated that maybe Dominic was sending himself presents in an effort to appear popular and got sucker-punched later for his efforts.

And Billy only smiled wider and hummed louder in that way that made Dominic crazy.

On Christmas Eve, Dominic was no closer to knowing who his Secret Santa was than he'd been the day before or the day before that. He didn't have an awful time because of it, quite the opposite, he had loads of fun with his mates all that day and most of the night. But...but when he returned home, he realized then that not only had he not discovered who his Secret Santa was, his Secret Santa hadn't left him a thing for Christmas.

Dominic told himself he wasn't disappointed by it. It was only Christmas Eve. A night just like any other. Because he didn't really care about Christmas all that much. He was indifferent to it, he reminded himself. Indifferent to Christmas.

He had to keep telling himself the next day as he flipped through Christmas special after Christmas special, trying to find something decent to find on television. You don't care much for Christmas, remember? he whispered to himself as he gave up and left the television on Charlie sodding Brown.

"Good grief" blared in the background of Dominic's thoughts as he moved restlessly from couch to floor to chair to couch. He didn't know what to do with himself, everyone he knew had family in and he wasn't gone far enough yet to leech off of someone else's family. Yet.

This was stupid though. Christmas wasn't a big deal for him. He'd fill his time in like any other day he'd spend alone. Yeah.

Suddenly, Dominic felt very, very much alone.

I don't care much for Christmas became replaced with I fucking hate Christmas.

And it was his mantra for the day until there was an envelope slipped beneath his door.

It was a plain, white envelope with nothing more than Dominic's name written on it in a handwriting that he didn't recognize. Dominic tried to ignore it, at first, and succeeded for all of two seconds before pouncing on it and ripping it open. Red and green confetti rained down on him, spilling from the envelope and Dom paused for a moment to stare at it, delighted, before pulling a Christmas card from the envelope, shaking confetti off of it as he opened it.

It said nothing more in it than Merry Christmas.

Dominic felt his hopes, which had been rising steadily, plummet. He was never going to find out who his Secret Santa was. He was never going to find out what it all meant, if it had ever meant anything at all. He was never - the sound of something hitting his door stopped his reverie. There it was again, something was being thrown at his door.

Irritated, Dominic thrust open the door, leaning out to yell at whoever was throwing things, when he saw him. Billy. Leaning against the wall across from his door, a handful of peppermint candies in his hand, several already littering the space between him and Dom's door. Peppermint candies like the ones that had been mingled in with the lollipops in his coat pockets.

"It was you?" Dom whispered, stopped in his doorway, his eyes wide.

"Merry Christmas, Dommie," Billy said lightly, stepping up to him.

"My secret Santa?"

"Yup." Billy took a step forward, forcing Dom back into the apartment.

"All the candy and the movie tickets and the everything - was you?"

"All me!" Billy took another step forward. Dom's eyes were wide as he continued stepping backwards. "And not only that."

"There's more?"

"I got Sean and Lij and Orli to help decorate your flat. To take you Christmas shopping. To take a picture with Santa. To make you love Christmas."

"I fucking hate Christmas."

Billy ignored him. "But most importantly, I got Lij and Orli to put up the mistletoe."

"There is nothing I fucking hate more than mistletoe."

"You mean, up till now." And Billy kissed him, long and slow and tasting of peppermint.

Dominic was shaking. "I don't care about Christmas."

"But I do. And I care about you. And I want...to share it...with you." Another slow kiss to Dominic's confused lips.

"Billy, why?"

"Dominic, I am *trying* to say I love you, but you're just not understanding me. How clear can I make it? I love you. And I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know how, till Christmas came - but then it didn't mean anything to you. So I had to make it mean something. So that *I* would mean something." Billy's hands were rough as they reached down to grasp Dominic's, to trace his thumb along the tender curve of Dominic's palm. His eyes met Dominic's and they asked - did it work?

Dominic was quiet, watching Billy's thumbs stroke along his hands, tender, pleading gestures. He remembered writing 'Elijah, you wanker, merry Christmas' in Lij's card, being forced onto a mall Santa's lap by a resolute but laughing Billy. His eyes rested on the flashing neon lights of his HAPPY HOLIDAYS sign, lifted up to stare at the dreaded mistletoe. He could feel the weight of a lollipop in his pocket and he smiled. All this...for him. All this, for him, from Billy.

"I think," Dominic said slowly, pulling his hands away from Billy's, "that..."

"What?" Billy whispered, Dominic's lips hovered over his own.

"That I love you," Dominic whispered back, just before his lips closed over Billy's.

Dominic is (indifferent to) (fucking hates) loves Christmas.

::END::


End file.
